Word: shied
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Thus the Shi'ite leaders felt threatened when the Shah set out to create a Western-style nation in the 20th century mold. He called his campaign the White (for bloodless) Revolution. Later it was renamed the Shah-People's Revolution, but changing the name did not prevent the inevitable clash of cultures...
...problems brought the Shah to the brink of disaster. As frustrations mounted over the months, Iranians turned to their Islamic religious leaders?the mullahs?who, as it happens, have deep grievances of their own. For centuries, the daily lives of the Persians were guided by conservative mullahs of the Shi'ite sect, whose influence embraced not only the country's spiritual life but also its secular culture and economic institutions...
...defiance of the mullahs, the Shah ordered widespread land reforms, divesting the Shi'ite clergy of their vast holdings. The Shah scheduled a referendum on land reform and won his way by a wide margin. He decreed new privileges for women, including the right to vote and to attend institutions of higher learning. In June 1963 the mullahs, having failed to block the Shah's reforms, called their people into the streets. Demonstrations turned into riots, and the Shah sent in his troops. When the rioting stopped several days later, 200 people were dead, and the leader of the mullah...
Among the mullahs inside Iran, the most powerful is Ayatullah Sharietmadari, a revered Islamic scholar who condemns violence but strongly opposes the Shah on constitutional and religious grounds (see box). Parliament, claims Sharietmadari, too often violates the precepts of Islamic law to the detriment of Shi'ite sensibilities. Gambling, prostitution and pornography are all viewed as typical manifestations of modernism. The Shah's widespread curtailment of civil liberties, freedom of the press and political assembly are looked upon as only further evidence of his determination to deprive the Shi'ites of their power and to transform the nation into...
Sharietmadari's headquarters?and thus the heart of Iran's internal Islamic opposition?is Qum, a city of 300,000 that ranks with Najaf in Iraq as one of the world's greatest centers of Shi'ite learning. Located 75 miles south of Tehran, Qum is both a symbol and a model of the Iran that the mullahs yearn to preserve. No television aerials mar the pristine skyline; no public cinemas threaten to seduce the inquisitive; no bars or liquor stores offend the strict life of the observant. All women wear the chador and devote much of their lives...